


Come and Go

by levendis



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: F/M, Threats of Violence, oldfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 12:19:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3381263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wrapping up the loose ends and unraveling what you've already got. Post-"Frame".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come and Go

"Oh," Eames says. "Really?"  
  
Goren ducks his head and turns away. "I shouldn't have - I'm sorry."  
  
"No, see, you can't get out of this that easily. You wanna drop something like this on me, you gotta deal with the consequences." She leans back in the booth, takes a long sip from her Coke. "Well, we wouldn't be the first partners to have this problem."  
  
He groans and buries his head in his hands. "I'msorry," he says, muffled.   
  
"Stop apologizing. I do care for you, and I - I wouldn't kick you out of bed. But Bobby?" She lowers her voice to a whisper and moves in conspiratorially. "You're not supposed to talk about the elephant in the room."   
  
"I know."  
  
"You're supposed to keep the cat in the bag."  
  
"You're mixing your metaphors."  
  
"That's part of my charm. Look, let's try to ignore this til later, okay? We have witnesses to interview."  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
It's a small cell, filled with that blue-gray light. He could be anywhere, any prison, any modern city. In a dark corner stands Declan Gage. Here we go.  
  
"Declan," he says, and walks in.  
  
"Come to see the show? Step right up, it's the amazing walking, talking dead."  
  
"Don't be so dramatic. You haven't been sentenced yet."   
  
"No? Bobby, I'm not interested in living my life in a cell, waiting for my brain to turn to mush. How many baskets do you think I can stand to make?" He sits on the bench.   
  
Goren circles around to face him, into the small beam of light coming from the window. "You really have lost your mind, haven't you."  
  
"Bobby, I am clearer-headed than I have been in years. Enough about me, because that is not what this is about. We're here because of _her_."  
  
"There's some loose ends - "  
  
"Which you don't have to wrap up, but here you are, because you can't let her go. Why are you still so obsessed with Nicole?"  
  
"I'm not obsessed. She was, she was someone I couldn't catch. And now I'm just trying to close the case."  
  
"And is that all? Your failure as a detective? Justice? No no no. That's not it. _Think_ , Bobby."  
  
"Declan," Goren says, then swallows hard. "What did you do with her body?"  
  
"Oh, the body, the body, you want the body. Stop avoiding me."  
  
"She was..." He mashes the heel of his palm into his face, rubbing against the bristle of his beard. "She was charming. Beautiful. Smart. She...I had sympathy for her, for what was done to her."  
  
"Even the devil has a sob story, Bobby."  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
"Here's my problem," Eames says. "You're a mess. Now that on its own isn't that big a deal; I've been picking up after you all these years, I'm used to it. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but at this point it's just a fact of my life. My partner needs his hand held. So what. No, my problem is, I think I _like_ seeing you like this. How crappy is that?" She raises her eyebrows and twirls the umbrella in her drink.   
  
"Everyone likes seeing the arrogant wunderkind get his comeuppance," he murmurs.   
  
"That's part of it, but not the part that weirds me out. No, what gets me is that I was attracted to the thin, clean-cut, Armani-clad Bobby Goren you used to be, but the Bobby Goren you are now is the one I want."  
  
"Because we've grown closer, I guess." He's blushing now. He runs a hand through his hair, tries to smooth the wrinkles out of his shirt, sucks in his gut. _It's not all that bad,_ he tries to say.   
  
"And we've grown further apart. Please don't start apologizing again," she says quickly, cutting off the torrent of "I'm sorry"s that were no doubt about to flood from his mouth. "I don't want to start that again. And I'm close to plenty of people, doesn't mean I want to fuck them. I just don't get it."  
  
"I don't either," even quieter, his face even redder. He looks like he's trying to collapse in on himself.   
  
"I don't think we should actually... I mean, it'd make everything worse. And I hate having to sneak around."  
  
"Of course."  
  
"I'm sorry," she says. ("Don't apologize," he whispers.) "I, look, okay. You're a good-looking guy, you're just...not my usual type. And it's startling how much I, how unprofessional I feel like being right now." She looks hard at him, catches his eye. "But it's the last thing either of us needs."  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
"So what do you have left?"  
  
"I have Eames. And Donny, wherever he is. And I have my mind, Declan, I have my conscience."  
  
"The implication being that _I_ have neither my mind nor a conscience. Do you feel better knowing I'm...not quite right?"  
  
"Don't." He rubs the back of his neck. "Don't question me. You gave up that right."  
  
"Did I hit a nerve?" Declan looks positively gleeful. "Oh, Bobby, you're still trying to forgive everyone. All the killers and the rapists, you need them to have reasons. You're terrified of evil, Bobby. Why do you think you couldn't give up Nicole? Why you kept _harping on_ about her childhood abuse?"  
  
"Declan-"  
  
"No, no, I'm on to something here. You need to find the good in everyone. You need to find their humanity. And here's Nicole, a monster, no remorse, and you can't get to her. You can't figure her out. Why does she do what she does?"  
  
"Why do you?"  
  
"Well-turned. How did you put it? Too much formaldehyde, too many drugs..."  
  
"Genetic roulette," Goren says behind his clenched fist.   
  
"Always."  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
In the bullpen, at their desks, they practice not looking at each other. She's got a big pile of printouts and he's got a psychology manual heavy enough to be classified as a lethal weapon. Around them the department chirps and rings and knocks, the hum of a dozen conversations; they don't look.  
  
For her part she's got a pretty good mental image of what she saw walking in this morning, how he'd combed his hair and trimmed his beard, rediscovered his extensive tie collection. How he dwarfed everything around him, like always, like this just isn't quite his world. Everything to such excess it makes her head spin, which is why she's paying very close attention to the work she can do without involving him.   
  
Except he's clearing his throat and reaching out and they have to talk to do their job, of course, and the whole point of not doing anything was so they could keep working as normal, which she at least is failing at. And she's not the type to be distracted like this.  
  
 _Get a grip, Alexandra_ , she chastises herself. _Don't forget who you are._  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
"It's the classic question. What makes killers kill? You, Bobby, you have the perfect profile: the absent father, the sick mother, an inability to fit in, high intelligence, obsessive. It's why my game worked so well. But why..." He pauses and rubs his front teeth with a dirty index finger. "Why did you become such an upstanding citizen?"  
  
Goren slams both hands down on the table. "I don't know," he bites out. "Roulette."  
  
"Mmm. You said you had Eames; do you?"  
  
"What? Yes, of course."  
  
"Have you told her?"  
  
"About what?" He tries for casual but he knows this is going someplace he's been desperately trying to avoid. He calms his breathing as much as he can.  
  
Declan waves a hand dramatically over his heart. "Your _feelings_ for her. She must have picked up on it, she's a bright girl -"  
  
"Yes," Goren cuts in. "I, uh, I told her."  
  
"And?"  
  
"I don't have to answer that."  
  
"Oh, don't be a bore, Bobby." He pauses. "I suppose there's no moving you, though, you're as stubborn as ever. It's not that important, really. I mean, Eames? What's the fun in discussing her?"  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
Imagine it like this: streetlight pooling around the black SUV, ground still wet from an old rain, a neon sign saying 'OPEN 24 HRS' flickering in a bodega window, the perpetual electric twilight of New York. Her face is bright but her hands are in shadow, wrapped around the bottom of the steering wheel, lips moving slightly along to the song playing quietly on the radio. He looks past her to the building across the street, the one lit window on the fourth floor, the man chain-smoking by the door.   
  
"It's been an hour," she says.   
  
"And five minutes."  
  
"We should call in a van if it takes much longer."  
  
He nods, and briefly shortens his focus from the man across the street to the woman sitting next to him, studies the angles of her profile. He resists the impulse to pull her bangs away from her face.  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
"That's what I taught you. Always...always the eager student. I made you what you are, remember that. But the older I get, and I am getting old Bobby, the more I... Do you believe in God, Bobby?"  
  
"Hmm? Oh. I, I used to."  
  
"Not anymore?"  
  
"This has nothing to do ("This has _everything_ to do with you," Declan cuts in) with why I'm here."   
  
"Don't you see?" Declan looks up expectantly. "Of course you do. You might not believe in God but you believe in mercy, don't you? You believe in," he deepens his voice, "man's innate goodness. And what's the flipside? That black cancer in so many people, in Nicole, hell, maybe in me, what is it? It's not history, it's not disease."  
  
"This is getting awfully Catholic."  
  
"And you're a lapsed altar boy. You have to believe in evil. And if you accept that evil exists, then you have to accept the possibility that it exists within you."   
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
She opens the door and walks in but does not turn on the lights. Goren waits in the doorway, his shadow stretching out over the living room.  
  
"Come on in, make yourself at home," she says, gesturing broadly at his apartment. He doesn't move, and she wishes she could see his face, or any detail aside from that huge sharp outline.   
  
She's been here before, remembers enough to not trip over anything, and the kitchen is briefly lit by the refrigerator opening; she pulls out a beer and the only sound apart from the rush of traffic outside and muffled thumps from the apartment upstairs and Goren's heavy breathing is the crack of the cap as she hits the bottle against the edge of the counter top.   
  
"Come in." She heads to the couch, watching Goren's shadow shift over the floor and furniture, and sits down just as the door closes. She's used to the dark enough to make out the complete lack of pictures in the room, the end table filled with books, the bent aerials on the television set. He walks around the room's perimeter, settles into a corner, a deepening of shadow broken only by the glints of his badge and belt buckle.   
  
The banging upstairs increases. "Either they're having the sex of their lives or we're about to get a call," she quips. The shadow tilts. "No laugh? No. I guess it wasn't that funny."  
  
"Funny enough," he says. She realizes that this is the first thing he's said in at least ten minutes. He doesn't seem eager to follow up on it. Doesn't seem eager to do anything at all. She stands and goes to him and as she gets closer she notices she can't see him any clearer, even up-close when she can feel the warmth of him and smell what's left of his cologne, she can't see his face, just the white of his eyes.  
  
"This will be a hell of a lot easier if you sit down," she says, peering up at him. "Unless you have a pair of stilts lying around."  
  
"This?"  
  
"This," she repeats, throws the rest of the beer down and bends to put the bottle on the floor, running her hands up his legs as she comes up. She stops at his waistband, squeezes a thumb under the belt buckle. He doesn't move, but she can hear his breath catching, catching, as she stretches up on tip-toe and presses her mouth to his collarbone. His chest rises and falls against her, one hand moving shakily to the small of her back, as she tugs his shirt aside to get to the crook of his neck.   
  
"You said it would make everything worse."  
  
"And it might. Or it might just shake this out of my system. I haven't been doing too well."   
  
"You're doing f-fine, just, just fine."   
  
"I feel like I need a rope and some carabiners here, help me out a little."   
  
He pushes out from the wall and hoists her up in one rough motion. She wraps her legs around his waist, squeezes, can feel the talk rapidly leaving her. Now he's looking up at her, expression unreadable.  
  
"What I meant was, I get distracted. I'll be trying to fill out paperwork, and you'll be there, and nothing gets...filled out."   
  
"Right," he says, but she doesn't think he's really listening. His thumbs are rubbing circles on her thighs and she's not listening to herself, either.   
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
"I see the way you're looking at me, Bobby."  
  
Goren hides his shaking hands behind his back. "Like what?"  
  
"Like you want to strangle me. That's your preferred method, isn't it? When you came at me after Jo kidnapped Eames, when you were working on Brady. You didn't hit me, or draw your gun, you wanted to-" He pantomimes on his own neck, chain from the handcuffs clinking around his skin. "-Choke the life out of me."  
  
"I'm not a killer, Declan, you goddamn - I'm not like you. I'm nothing like you. I could never - no matter what you did, I'm not some John Ford vigilante, I couldn't - "  
  
"Couldn't you? What's stronger, the desire to kill me, or the fear that you might succeed?"  
  
Goren is silent, breathing heavily, nostrils flaring, unblinking. Declan waits.   
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
"We shouldnt've done this." She runs a finger over the curve of his belly. He's stopped flinching, at least.  
  
"Probably not."  
  
"I wanna do it again."  
  
He huffs out a sigh. "So do I."  
  
"So what do you think? What should we do? Keep doing this?" Her hand finds his shoulder and then neck, the soft spot behind his ear. "Or be good boys and girls and forget it ever happened?"  
  
"You're the logical one, not me." He turns and brings an arm over her, presses his lips to the corner of her mouth. "I'm the one always making mistakes."  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
"Do it." He softens his expression. "Do it. Like putting a rabid dog out of its misery."  
  
"Dec."  
  
" _Do it._ "  
  
"Declan, I told you, I'm nothing like you. I have my mind, and my heart. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't -"  
  
"You're trying to say you don't want to? Come on. You can't hide from me. I know you have it in you, I've seen it. Everybody's got it, Bobby, that's what I've been trying to tell you."  
  
"Yeah? Maybe. But some of us have self-restraint, okay? Not everyone loses control."  
  
"You're touchy today."  
  
"Am I?"  
  
"Is this about Eames again?"  
  
Goren bites his lip. Well, when is it not?   
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
"That was the last time," he says. He's pulling his shirt back on, buttoning with steady fingers.   
  
"Says who?" she asks, but yeah, she knows. She watches him slide into his shoes, put the cufflinks in, tighten his tie, and like that he's all locked up again.   
  
"This is who I am," he says. He touches his hand to her face, gently. "And maybe I can trick myself, trick you, into thinking I'm something I'm not. I'm good at that." He smiles a small, rueful kind of smile. "Can trick people into thinking pretty much anything. Just, I don't wanna do that to you. Not you."  
  
As sick as she is of him making her decisions for her, she knows he might be right. And right or not, it's still the easiest way. She's got no romantic illusions, not anymore. Sometimes it's best to not even try, she tells herself. Sometimes it's best to let things be what they always were.   
  
"Declan's giving a full statement," he says, in a voice full of casual confidence he probably doesn't feel. "And I..." He pauses. "Eames?"  
  
"Goren?"  
  
He sticks out his hand. "Friends?"  
  
She smiles and gives him the firmest handshake of her life. "Always."


End file.
